Brain Tumor Awareness Month is a perfect time to reflect on the role of Mayfield Brain & Spine as a catalyst for excellence in three major health systems in the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky region. In the two years since Mayfield and the University of Cincinnati Department of Neurosurgery parted ways, Mayfield has helped strengthen and elevate brain tumor programs at TriHealth, Mercy Health, and St. Elizabeth Healthcare.
Last fall TriHealth’s Good Samaritan Hospital became the first hospital in the Midwest and the third in the United States to earn The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® for Brain Tumor Certification. The Gold Seal is a symbol of national quality that reflects an organization’s commitment to providing safe and effective patient care.
“Being the first hospital in the Midwest to earn this distinction reinforces the fact that patients diagnosed with brain tumors do not need to travel out of town for treatment,” said Mayfield’s Christopher McPherson, MD, Site Director for Neurosurgery at Good Samaritan.
Also in 2018, Mayfield announced its official partnership with Mercy Health and OHC in the new Brain Tumor Center at The Jewish Hospital – Mercy Health. Mayfield’s Vincent DiNapoli, MD, PhD, the Brain Tumor Center’s director, described the Mayfield-Mercy-OHC triumvirate as “an intellectual and technological powerhouse that will provide unrivaled care to patients in the region while also serving as a destination for patients within the wide geographic reach of Mercy Health.”
St. Elizabeth, meanwhile, is rapidly ramping up its brain tumor capabilities, and new developments are on the horizon. Mayfield physicians work alongside St. Elizabeth Physicians to diagnose and treat adult patients with primary and metastatic brain tumors. St. E’s Neuro-Oncology Clinic gives patients and their loved ones access to multiple support staff to assure their needs are addressed.
The Jewish Hospital includes the region’s only Gamma Knife ® center, co-directed by Mayfield’s Ronald Warnick, MD, and OHC’s Peter Fried, MD, and the only fellowship-trained skull base team that treats pituitary tumors (Mayfield neurosurgeons Dr. DiNapoli and Yair Gozal, MD, PhD, and otolaryngologist Lee Zimmer, MD, PhD). Good Samaritan includes the region’s only board-certified neuro-oncologist, Richard Curry, MD, who also sees patients at St. Elizabeth.
All three brain tumor programs support multidisciplinary Tumor Board conferences, in which experts meet regularly to discuss treatment and management strategies for common or rare brain tumors.
Dr. Warnick is coordinating the standards, research, and journal reviews at all three health systems. In addition, he serves as an editorial board member for the Journal of Neuro-Oncology, the official journal of the Association of Neurological Surgeons / Congress of Neurological Surgeons Section on Tumors. Dr. Warnick is also an ad-hoc reviewer for the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, and Physics; Radiation Oncology; World Neurosurgery; and the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Revitalized by Mayfield Brain & Spine, brain tumor programs at three regional health systems can be confident in assuring their patients that brain tumor awareness — and excellence — begins at home.